


Spring Begins Anew (or does it?)

by HazelnutofFortune



Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, M/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Farmer is i guess how you'd put it, Time Loop, kind of?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-23
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:49:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24334627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HazelnutofFortune/pseuds/HazelnutofFortune
Summary: Spring comes wet and sudden that year, and Sebastian wakes up on the first of the season feeling something deep and expectant.Or: In which the residents of pelican town are stuck in an unfortunate time loop, but Sebastian gets his hopes up.
Relationships: Abigail & Sam & Sebastian (Stardew Valley), Abigail & Sebastian (Stardew Valley), Maru & Sebastian (Stardew Valley), Sam/Sebastian (Stardew Valley)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 44





	Spring Begins Anew (or does it?)

Spring comes wet and sudden that year, and Sebastian wakes up on the first of the season feeling something deep and expectant.

“What the fuck,” he says, because it is 6 am and he is awake, untired.

It is with great reluctance that he trudges out of bed at 6:30, pulls on his clothes, and goes to watch the sunrise, but once he’s there, it feels right in a way that is foreign to him.

The sky colors slowly and delicately, and the stars fade. The day warms, and Sebastian thinks, irrationally, about a poem he had to read in his freshman year of high school, years ago, or maybe longer. Nature’s first green is gold.

Demetrius finds him still outside at 8 or 9 and Sebastian goes inside, good mood strained. 

Something was there, though, and Sebastian does not forget.

~

They’re lying on Sebastian’s bed, avoiding the late summer heat, when it happens, that time.

“It’s so stupid,” Sam says. “I don’t understand why she can’t just treat me like an adult. I’m 20.”

“Mm,” Sebastian says, glancing up from his handheld. “Moms are just like that.”

“We should move out,” Sam proposes, “And get an apartment in Zuzu City. You’ve been saving up, haven’t you?”

“Yeah,” Sebastian agrees, “Pelican Town fucking sucks, dude.”

Sam looks at him and then at the sloped ceiling above them and decides that he’s going to get angry about it for once.

“It’s not just ‘yeah’ and then move on,” Sam says, suddenly needing more than that quiet acquiescence. “We keep talking about this. We’ve been talking about this for  _ years, I- _ ”

“Sam.” Sebastian says. He’s turned off the game, now. 

Sam feels even more frustrated. He can’t understand it, but a terrible realization lives in his periphery. He tries, adamantly, to catch it.

“NO!” Sam yells, the volume of it reassuring. He's real. “Something is wrong. I-don’t you see it?”

“Calm down,” Sebastian admits, takes Sam’s hand. 

“I’ve said this before,” Sam says, stomach churning. “We’ve had this conversation before, I think.”

“Yes, we have,” Sebastian says. “More than once.”

He turns off the light, pulling Sam into the cool darkness with him. 

“Oh,” Sam says, and he flails an arm out in the dark, hand finding Sebastian’s. He feels very small.

“Don’t worry,” Sebastian says. “Something is going to change soon. I can feel it.”

“Okay,” Sam says, and latches on to the nearest comfort. “Does that mean we can kiss?”

Even in the dark, he can sense Sebastian tense.

“Well, that was different,” and he sounds shocked with the novelty of it, a sharp newness in something worn soft with age. And then, “Yeah.”

They kiss in the dark, sharing a sense of sad and beautiful conspiracy, until Sam draws back and falls asleep.

Sebastian wonders, alone again, if the change will stick.

  
~  
  


Abigail and Sebastian are sitting on the pier one afternoon, alone. It’s fall, and the air is crisp and cool. Abigail takes a deep breath of the sea and thinks now is the time to bring it up.

“So, hey,” she starts. “You and Sam are a thing, now, right?”

Sebastian tenses a little. “Yeah.”

“It’s okay,” she says. “I don’t mind. Things are changing around here.”

“You’ve noticed?” Sebastian says. 

“A little,” she says. “I can just sort of tell that things have been the same too long.”

“I...Sorry if I ever lead you on, Abby.” Sebastian manages.

“You didn’t,” and she seems so sure that Sebastian feels almost absolved. “We’ve been teenagers for a long time.”

“Yeah,” Sebastian says, feeling closer to her than he has since he realized. “You wanna do something stupid?”

“Oh, absolutely.” She stands and extends her hand to him. She pulls him up and they smile at each other. There is a togetherness in this fear.

~  
  


Winter comes, as always, and Sebastian waits for Spring. That hard, inevitable reset. It feels like things have changed, but he can’t know.

Sebastian indulges in closeness, lives recklessly and uncharacteristically. He sleeps over at Sam’s and listens to the clatter of Jodi’s dishwashing after Sam has left for work. He helps Abigail hold a seance that almost burns the Yoba shrine in the back of Pierre’s down. The laughter and pleasure of youth almost numbs his fear.

The Feast of the Winter Star is not a holiday Sebastian holds in high esteem. Sam and Abigail seem to like it well enough, so he buys them gifts, dutifully, and accepts their mutual attempt at sashimi gratefully enough.

It’s after dinner, once the town’s gift exchange and family festivities alike are over, that Maru finds him.

“You’ve been spending a lot more time outside lately,” she says, and startles him.

“I brought you a jacket.” 

Sebastian takes the jacket with numb hands and realizes a little late just how cold he is.

“Thanks, but I don’t get cold,” he says, and puts it on. “And I can spend time outside if I want to.”

“I never said you couldn’t,” Maru says. “I’m glad, actually.”

“Have you noticed,” Sebastian says, expecting it to be a bitter shock or a joke to her, “That things always start over in Spring?”

“Yes,” Maru says. “But I don’t think they will, this year.”

“Why?” Sebastian asks. Maru always has a reason.

“I’m a scientist,” she says. “But sometimes even I just have a gut feeling.” 

And Sebastian is surprised to find he believes her.

~  
  


He decides not to sleep the night of the 28th, frozen in his dread. 

Sam calls him at around 11, and the call is interrupted by Abby checking on him 15 minutes later. 

He smiles into the phone, presses it close to his ear, and they talk through the night - about many things, but most reassuringly about nothing. They spitball and follow tangents and argue about things that don’t make a difference.

Sebastian wakes the morning of the first of Spring, tired this time, and thinks,  _ we made it.  _ Triumphant, he rolls over and sleeps for several more hours.

Later, he cannot believe all this was leading up to the arrival of one stupid farmer.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey!! So I know this might seem like kind of a weird little piece, but I had 2 primary inspirations:
> 
> a) quarantine can feel like a bit of a time loop hellhole, personally. i love projecting my emotional distress onto innocent fictional characters. and
> 
> b) just because it's a video game, and because interactions aren't coded to happen at specific times, the sense of time in stardew valley can feel a little screwy. especially interesting to me was the way sebastian, abby, and sam are in a perpetual state of very mild rebellion/"gotta move out" but they never actually accomplish their goals the way they envision. they're young adults caught on the edge of leaving the nest, but they never quite do, and i thought, hey, what if that was depressing and existential? but also, i'm a sucker for happy endings, so for some reason the time loop falls out of sync the year before the farmer arrives. why? idk! but i had a fun time writing this and i'm actually pretty proud of the end result.


End file.
